A Haunter Of The Dark
by Alan Spencer
Summary: Taylor doesn't trigger in the locker. Months later, while going on a walk, she gets attacked by a savage monster and is turned into a Dead Apostle.
1. I

**A Haunter Of The Dark**

 **I**

It hurt. I couldn't even breathe, and I could hardly move. I didn't remember where I was, why I was like this and what was happening to me, but I pushed those thoughts away. I pushed myself to my knees, the agony cursing through me seeming to spike for a brief moved every time I moved even a little. I felt sick. So, so sick.

This was my death throes. That thought penetrated the haze of pain in my mind. I forced myself to my feet. I screamed like a dying animal, but I managed to kept myself upright. For about a second. Then I fell to the side, only managing to avoid hitting my head against the wall by supporting myself on it with one hand.

I stood there, hunched over, barely able to think, pain coursing through me. The pain was so bad I thought my body was breaking down. I was there for sometime, didn't know how long. After a while, the agony settled into a background noise. It hurt. It was so painful. But I felt like I could handle it.

I was in some back alley. I didn't know how me of all people would be here like this, and for what. When I tried to remember I came up with a blank. Anyways, I had to get away. I could think about that later, once I was at home. Once I was safe. I didn't even want to think what could have happened to me after passing up for god knows how long, and staying around here like this sure as hell wouldn't improve my odds.

I got out of the alley, and into the light.

The pain spiked again. I screamed. I was send reeling back a few steps, and it made me fall down on my ass. What… what was that? Was I getting worse? Yeah, that was the normal answer. Something any normal person would think, or at least what they wish they could think. But I realized it immediately. It hadn't got worse. What had caused that pain had be the contact of light on my skin.

For some reason, I understood then. Like I switch had be flipped inside my brain. My body hurt because it was breaking down, and I needed. I needed blood, the blood of a human being. That's what I needed to restore my genetic makeup, m-my…

 **soul**

The information came to my head suddenly, and it was surreal, in a sense, almost like I was thinking the thoughts of somebody else.

I turned back, my breathing speeding up along with my heart. I could think about that later. About all of that. I, I had to get back home. This would sort itself up by morning. I couldn't be like this forever, I just couldn't. That kind of thing didn't happen, was not supposed to happen. And even if it could happen, why to me? I had suffered enough already.

Yes, so this would be over soon.

* * *

I went, avoiding the sunlight all the way. From dark alley to dark alley. Midway through, the sky darkened and it started raining, so I didn't had to brother with that from then on. I reached my house. Dad was not there yet. Of course he wasn't. I had chosen to skip today because I just, I couldn't handle it anymore. The people who didn't care. The people who watched, laughed. The people who tried to pretended everything was all right, shoving the ugliness of the locker and all the bullying where nobody could find it again.

So I started walking around to clear my head, to try to forget about everything that happened. And then. On that alley.

I remembered. Somebody had grabbed me, shoved me against the wall of the alley, and I had panicked. I thought that I was going to be… So I tried to scream, but a hand was quickly put over my mouth. I kicked, I cried, I struggled with all my might, but I couldn't even made him budge. He rested his chin on my shoulder, and I thought he was about to lick me, or something.

And then he bit me.

There was only pain after that, and the next thing I remembered was waking up.

I dropped to my knees, unable to keep myself on my feet for even a second longer. Panting like an animal, I clawed at my chest, as if I could stop the pain. There was a word for something like that. A word I didn't even want to think about. A

 **vampire**

But I had to be something else. Some… some sort of poison, maybe. I walked to the telephone, picked it up, and almost marked the number of the PRT. Almost. I put it back down, though. Because something from deep inside me was telling me that I was fooling myself, that this was no poison or anything and that there was no poison that would hurt me if my skin contacted with sunlight. I didn't know what it was for real, but it clearly wasn't a poison.

I closed my eyes. Pushed those thoughts away. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Then the door was opened. I hadn't be done loudly, but it sure as hell startled me. Almost made me jump. Then the lights came on. I noticed, with an irrational sense of panic, that I hadn't even noticed before that the lights hadn't been on. That didn't bode well. After all, that was also characteristic of vampires.

I thought about running away, hiding. For a single moment. Then I went back, to meet my dad.

"Ta..." he stopped cold. He rushed towards me. "Christ, what happened to you? You look… so pale, and," he put his hands on my cheeks. "you're freezing. Did… did any of those girls do something to you?"

I didn't focus on his words. My eyes were instantly draw to one thing and one thing only: the nape of his neck. In the light, it seemed enticing. I felt my heart and my breathing speed up. I licked my lips. There was no harm in it, really. I couldn't see why there could be any harm in it. It would only be a little… bite. A taste of it. Just to see what it was like.

"T-this..." he touched my neck, slowly, carefully. As if afraid of hurting me. For the sensation, I guessed than that was where the bite marks were. "Fuck."

Many, many things must surely have gone through his head, each worse that the other. I didn't pay any mind to his distress, nor to the frustration in his voice for not being able to help me like a father should. I moved my head closer and closer to his neck, slowly. I bare my teeth. There was a sharp sound, almost like a knife being unsheated. Heh. I would have my first time with my own father. There was something funny about that.

I was about to bite him…

But I pushed him away. I stumbled back, feeling the pain spiking as if irritated I hadn't done it. As if it was going to tear me apart from the inside. It hurt, it hurt so much. I could barely breathe again, and I thought that this was it, that I was going to die meaninglessly right here, that my father would have to watch me die. He moved towards me.

"Get away from me!" I stumbled back, fell down on the ground. I closed my eyes tightly. "Get away!"

"T-taylor, please, whatever is happening to you… you need help. You can't..." he took a step forward.

I opened my eyes, and looked at him. Held his gaze.

"I told you to stay away!" a primal roar like a dying animal. He suddenly stopped, as if he was a puppet with his strings cut. Knowledge I never knew flowed into my head again. I intuitively understood how things were. "Stay there. Don't try to stop me."

I forced myself to my feet, when out through the main entrance and fled.


	2. II

**Interlude**

One moment, Danny Hebert had be filled with panic and confusion, and desperation to help his daughter. The next moment, Taylor was gone. Like she hadn't never be there at all. He whipped the sweat off his forehead. What had she said, before this happened? Yes, he remembered. She had screamed at him to stay away. And… something more. He had the sense that there had be something more, but he couldn't remember what it was. And now she was gone.

At it had been an illusion, a stress induced hallucination? No. He discarded it in an instant. The possibility was too tempting to be real. The most likely reason was that his daughter had got powers, and had hypnotized him so she could escape. If she had made herself invisible, he would surely have noticed the change.

He didn't understand that. He didn't understand why would she want to dealt with it by herself, not what caused so much panic in her. But it was clear she needed help.

No, for fuck's sake. She always needed help. It was just that he was so weak, and too useless to give her what she needed. No matter what he did, they refused to take responsibility for what had happened after winter break. For the locker. They paid the hospital bills, they said a lot of empty niceties, but at the end of the day all that meant was that they wouldn't give his daughter's tormentors what they deserved, that the culprits weren't even close to being found, that they wouldn't never be found and that his daughter would be left to break day by day…

He stopped. He breathed in, breathed out. He didn't have time to wallow in his misery. He couldn't help her, but at least he could get the help she needed. As a father, that was the least he could do. He went to the living room, and turned on the television, just in case. Yeah. The time didn't match, even counting the time he had spend in his own head with another useless rant filled with self hatred.

He went to the telephone. He knew the PRT's number, of course. This was Brockton Bay, after all. It was a necessity.

It seemed like they had took an eternity to pick up, but it couldn't have be more that a few seconds.

"Please state your name and the nature of your emergency."

"My name is Danny Hebert. My daughter... She suddenly got powers, and she ran away from home."

"Do you need medical assistance?"

"W-what? No!" he knew it was stupid to scream to the man, who was only doing his job and didn't even meant it like that, but the very implication that Taylor would hurt him made his blood boil.

"Very well, sir." there was trace of irritationin the other man's tone. "What's your daughter's name, and her powers?"

"Taylor. Her name's Taylor. And her powers… I don't know. She just… when I tried to help her, she looked at me in the eyes and screamed 'I told you to stay away' and in the next instant, at least from my point of view, she was gone."

"I see. We will take care of this, don't worry."

He couldn't. He had too many things to worry about. She could end up hurt, killed, raped or conscripted into some gang. He could barely think straight, with all of that in his mind.

"Yes. Thank you." after a small pause: "Please. She's a bad place, so please, if she reacts… badly, don't hold it against her. Please."

"We understand, sir. I have to hang up now. We keep you posted on any significant developments."

"Thank you." Danny said, then hanged up.

He send the telephone down, sat on a nearby sofa, and buried his head between his hands. Waiting. Now, he had nothing to do but wait, incapable of doing anything worthwhile. What a bad joke.

"I'm sorry, Annette." he apologized to the empty house. "I'm so useless. If you had been here with us, things wouldn't have come to this point."


	3. III

**II**

I ran. I just ran, not allowing myself to think about anything else. The impulse to drink blood was still boiling within me, and the pain did nothing but increase it. My own heartbeat resounded unbearably loudly in my ears. The flow of blood itself was painful because my blood wasn't blood anymore. At least, not human blood.

I eventually stopped running. I didn't know how much I ran, but I didn't feel tired at all. It was just that pain. That, that was not normal. I had never be in shape, so running so much without being even a little winded was supposed to be impossible. I sat down, put my back against the wall, and hugged myself. Though, of course, that was only natural.

I couldn't kept up my disillusion anymore. Things weren't normal, and they wouldn't never go back to how they were before ever again.

I was a vampire.

I repeated that to myself, just to let that sink it. I didn't make sense, those things weren't supposed to exist, and if there was some villain whose powers essentially translated to being a vampire and, most of all, he or she had the capacity to extend it, I would have heard about it. Everybody would have heard about that person. Either way, I was one or something so close to it that making a distinction wasn't worth it.

I had been about to bite my own father, tear him apart. I felt such a lust for blood that I had even be willing to do that, fully knowing that I wouldn't be able to stop.

I couldn't never see him again. I couldn't never see another person again. My body had already changed too much. Nobody could turn me back to who I was before and take away this blood-lust.

I was alone and I would die alone.

I should have be worried about what I had become, about hurting people, but that was all I could think of. I couldn't never live as human being, not with this blood-lust. I could pretend I wasn't feeling it, I could try to stop myself and maybe I would last for a while, but the fact of the matter was that someday, I didn't know when but someday, my efforts wouldn't be enough and I would hurt somebody or more likely kill them, leave them as nothing but a dried up corpse.

So that was it for me. My life was over. So, if my life was over… I uncurled, and punched the wall. It caved in, and I hadn't even put any strength behind it. It didn't hurt. Not even a little. Yeah. With this, I could do it. There was no doubt about it. If I was to die, I could at least take Sophia, Emma and Madison with me. Show them that they shouldn't have messed with me. Nobody was willing to give them what they deserved for the locker, for all the shit they did to me, so why shouldn't I do it?

But… I couldn't do that. I was better than that. I knew I was. Even now, when I could hurt them, kill them, when it was I who had the power, I wouldn't do it. It would be wrong. Also, killing them would make me give out to this blood-lust, and if that happened, I didn't knew what could I do.

No, not exactly. If things came to that point, I understood that I wouldn't even care, that I wouldn't no longer be the person I was before.

I started crying. This, all of this, was so unfair. Even after the bullying had started, there were a few moments of peace, but they were fleeting and marred by the fact that I couldn't never escape from it. I couldn't even remember the last time I felt truly, wholly happy. And now this. What bullshit. Didn't I deserve to be happy? I hadn't done anything wrong. But of course, the world didn't care. Nobody really cared, besides me and my dad And none of us could do anything about it.

So, this was over.

Approaching footsteps. I looked up, a little startled, but not worried. Not for myself. Through the haze of my tears, I saw a middle age woman at the edge of the alley. Her expression was full of concern.

"What happened to you?" she said.

"Stay away." I could her heart beating, even from here. I could heard the blood, flowing inside of her. It was maddening, all of it. Despite myself, I wanted to get taste of it. It wasn't just to end the pain. I trembled with something approaching ecstasy as I imagined this woman's blood going down my throat.

She approached me, keeled in front me.

"Please, just… stay away." I begged her. I could have pushed her away easily, and then take that chance to run away from her...but some part of me, a far too big part of me, didn't want to do that. I felt like I was rooted in place. No, more like I felt my mind had be ripped from my body and that I was just watching this happen.

"It's all right." she said, and hugged me. "I don't know what happened to you, but it's all right. I make sure you get help."

My head… it wasn't working straight. It was wrong. It was wrong to kill anybody, but it would be even worse to do it to this person, who hadn't done nothing wrong, who had only wanted to help a crying girl huddled in a dark alley when most people would just have pretended they didn't see anything. But.

Those words all rang hollow to me. She was so close to me. I could smell the blood beneath her skin and just, it was too much for me. I wrapped my arms around her waist, as if hugging her. But, it wasn't like that. I rested my chin on her shoulder, and I sunk my teeth into her neck.

She tried to scream, but it was no use. I pushed her to the ground, straddled her and covered her mouth with one hand. I bit deeper, deeper. The blood flowed into my mouth, down my throat. It was delicious. I didn't know how I lived without this before. It tasted like a nectar from the gods. The woman's weak struggles and feeble gasps only excited me even more.

The taste of the blood was pure pleasure. It filled a void inside of me that I didn't even know I had before. But as the blood was digested the pleasure dwindled, so kept sucking more and more blood to get it back. I drank from this fountain of human meat until there

was no even a drop of blood left.

Then I looked down. She was dead, and all shrivelled up, like a mummy. I felt sick. The taste of blood lingered on my mouth, but now I wasn't feeling anything but disgust. I remembered my thoughts, and myself acting like a starved animal. This was it. I had crossed a line. I was turning into a monster, both in mind and body. Had the person I was before disappeared already?

The pain had disappeared. Yes, disappeared. Not faded. My body felt wonderful, and I felt like I could do anything. But my heart was broken beyond repair. I had killed somebody. Worst of all, I had killed somebody who had cared, who had tried to help me. No matter what I did, how much I regret it, I couldn't possibly offer compensation for this crime. She was dead. That was the end of it. A life had been snuffed out with my own hands, and all out of some sick pleasure.

I laughed to myself in the empty alley. The mummy like corpse was the only one there to heard it. Tears were streaming down my face, harder that ever before.

Yes, I couldn't offer compensation for this crime. But at least, I could compensate for being how I was now.

So I started walking into the light beyond the alley, to end it all.


	4. IV

**III**

Right when I was about to take that final step, I stopped myself. I couldn't do it. I was too scared to do it, even knowing the damage I could cause. The damage I had caused. That was it. The fear. I was scared of the pain it would take me to melt in the sunlight, I was scaring of disappearing here meaninglessly, miserable and unable to do anything. I was scared of the darkness of death.

I slowly backed away from the light.

That person, her life, her family and her friends and the future she dreamed of. Everything, stolen by me for my own pleasure, to quench this blood-lust. For how long would that last. I hadn't even thought about holding back, about letting her go once I drank a little bit. I could have, but I didn't. Back then, I had been nothing more that an animal.

I had took a life. So of course, justice would be for my life to end right here. But, I didn't want to die. It was scary.

Besides, it would be a waste for me to die. There was no meaning or reason for my state. I had simply been chosen as that man's food. It could have happened to anybody. So what mattered was that I had become like this. That I was fast, and strong, and that I knew I could do so much more. I had power. With this power, I could do some good.

Yeah, that's right. I was no hero, I couldn't never be called a hero, but I could still redeem myself. I could use these powers to fight against criminals, and if I lost myself to the blood-lust again then at least the victims would be dangerous criminals. There was no reason for me to die when I could help many people.

… Somehow, though, those words ran hollow to me. They all sounded like excuses.

I pushed that thought aside, and went away to wait for the night.

* * *

Once the night fell, I stood up. I turned back, and looked up. I took a deep breath. I hadn't never tried this before, so I was a little nervous, even though I knew I could do it, even though I intuitively understood I could.

I jumped, and ran up the wall to the top of the building. Once I was up of there, I almost couldn't believe I had done such a thing. But I had. I could do this. I smiled. I knew it shouldn't have happened, but the shame and the guilt of having killed that woman got pushed aside for an instant because of the pure happiness that came with knowing that I could do this for real, that I could help people. That my existence had value.

I bit my lip. What was I thinking of? I had always wanted to be a hero, sure, but not like this. If this hadn't happened to me, that woman wouldn't have died. More that this feeling of having worth at least, I wished that I would haven't be bitten so that woman would have survived, and so that Taylor Hebert would have survived to live on and die quietly. But also, while I was out walking, I had be considering killing myself. So it was undeniable that this vampiric curse was what tied me to life, in a sense.

What a bad joke.

It seemed that after my mother's car accident, my life had been merely a string of bad jokes.

I shook my head. There was no time to wallow in my guilt and self hatred. I hadn't put myself under the sunlight because I could still do some good. Every moment I wasted like this was a betrayal of that decision.

I knew what I had to do.

* * *

I didn't have a patrol route, and I didn't have the sense of the city- for a lack of a better way to put it- that an experienced hero would have, so I just sort of wandered around, keeping a lookout for any crime. It wasn't like I hoping for there to be a crime for my own satisfaction. It's just… this was Brockton Bay, after all. If I didn't find any crime, especially at night, it wasn't that there hadn't be any crime, just that I hadn't found it.

From above, I caught a few armed men breaking into a store. They were three, in total. There might be a Parahuman among them, but since they all were armed, there was a low chance that there could be one who could match me in a fight. Yeah, this would be easy.

I waited until they all were inside. Then, I slowly went down the wall and to the ground. I entered.

Even in this darkness, I could see them perfectly. I moved. I covered the distance between me and the closest person to me in less that a second, grabbed him and threw him against the wall so hard it cracked, and he lost consciousness. The others whirled towards me, aiming their guns. I froze. I didn't know why, but I did.

He pressed the trigger.

The bullet whirled towards me, towards my brain, to end my life. I contentiously dodged it. It was not that I was too fast, but that to this body the bullet was just too slow. I took a step forward, moved, grabbed the gun by the barrel and broke it by giving it a little squeeze. I laughed as it broke beneath my hands, as horror dawned on the little thug's face. It was good. I didn't want to admit it, but it was good, all right. They thought they could do anything they pleased, step over anybody, that they could get away with their crimes… but they wouldn't.

That was something Sophia, Emma and Madison should learn.

I pushing him lightly, sending him crashing to the ground. I turned to face the other. He threw the gun to the ground, got on his knees and put his hands behind his head. I stopped immediately. It took me more effort to do that it should have. This brief fight had made my blood sing, and I wanted more. Panting, even though I wasn't tired at all, I approached him, and knocked him out of consciousness.

I turned towards the other one, who was trying to get up.

"Stay there, or I will kill you." I didn't meant it, of course. But he didn't know that. He put his back against the wall, gave a shaky nod, and closed his eyes.

I didn't have a phone. Phones a taboo in our house since my mother's dead. Now I found myself wishing I would have brought a phone, anyway. I checked one of the thug's pockets, feeling almost like a criminal myself, and finally found a phone. I marked the police's number.

"Please state your name and the nature of your emergency."

"I have stopped an armed robbery of a jewellery store. Three men, in total. Thug's of the ABB. The nearest intersection is, uh..." It took me more that it should have toremember. I made a mental note to take a little time to memorize them. "Pearl Drive."

I was fairly sure that was it, but I wasn't completely sure, so I was a bit nervous.

"You stopped them? By yourself?"

"I'm a Parahuman." I lied. "That's not the important thing here, anyway. Come and get them."

"…I see. We will."

"Good." I said, and hanged up.

I let the phone fall from my hand, got out, put my back against the wall and waited. Of course, I wasn't going to let them see me. I was just going to wait until I saw them coming, and I would then run away. I had hypnotized my dad. He would surely connect that to Parahuman Powers once he shook it off, so he surely would have called the PRT after that. I couldn't show my face. They would try to help me, but I was beyond help already.

I understood that, and what I had done tonight only further confirmed things. I had be so brutal while fighting those three. I had very nearly attacked the last of them, even though he had surrendered already. I might still look human, but I wasn't human anymore. My body was abnormal, and my instincts were like that of an animal. There was no way somebody like me could be helped. In the first place, I don't deserve to be helped.

I had to get a costume, or something. Maybe make it, even. Is not like I need some fancy armoured costume, after all. Even something simple would be enough. Or at least I had to get something to cover my face. And some new clothes.

I kept watch over the shop. It was a little bit annoying. I really should have thought about getting myself a pair of handcuffs. It would have be more time efficient, but there was nothing I could do to change it now. They didn't take long to arrive. About twenty minutes. Could have be more. I heard them coming long before I saw them. And when I saw it turn the corner, I turned around and ran up the wall. They would at least have a description of my general appearance, which could be bad, but well. I didn't have much of a choice, and it didn't necessarily have to change things.

I heard the window of the car going down, and one of them asking me to stop with a megaphone. I didn't pay them any mind. I just went away. They didn't take long to give up.

I still had some time before dawn came, and I wasn't going to waste it.


End file.
